28 THEY WERE NEW YORKERS M cDoNALD CLARKE Ii ved and loved, equally unrequited in each field, in the day when Knickerbocker was not mere- ly a name to be applied to laundries, ice companies, canoe clubs and dental par- lors. The sedate journals of the eighteen-twenties called him "the mad poet." Perhaps that was because he anticipated, a cen- tury in advance, the hatlessness of Harry Kemp, and added the piquant touch at the other extremity of wear- ing one boot and one shoe. But, mad or sane, McDonald Clarke was not an outright oaf. Hedged in by the thousands of vol- umes that line the shelves of the New Yark Public Library, there is one slim quarto that preserves his wistful verse. Bartlett has quoted nothing from it but he might have made graver errors. For instance, there is the line: "Now twilight lets her curtain down And pins it with a star." But all poets cannot be immortal, and the hitch in McDonald Clarke's immortality seems, at this late date, to be the fact that he let himself be laughed at. That, of course, is always fatal, and fatality has a way of ruin- ing immortality. McDonald Clarke came to New York in 1819 from a little town in Massachusetts, in pursuit of an actress he had loved from a balcony seat. He married her. It was, perhaps, his only successful love affair and it lasted only as long as one of his shorter poems. But it was inspiration, after a fash- ion, and his verse soon began to appear in the newspapers, where all good verse of the day had its beginnings. Its touch of genius caught the attention of the Knickerbocker literati and he soon found himself in the taproom of that squat rendezvous, Shakespeare Tavern, along with Halleck, Paul- ding, a wide-eyed young Bryant and later a pale young Poe. It did not take him long to reveal the fathomless void in his curious life. He was positively cursed with an aching heart.. Nothing swathed in petticoats-and you just know they wore them then-failed to sway him emotionally. He wrote verses to the ntire f minine population, one by one. Their dedications were uni- formly plaintive. They were of this sort: "To a fair lady whose name I have quite kissed off one side, saying it over with " my prayers. And so the nitwits of the day turned this longing to their pleasure. They "cross... gartered the mad M alvolio" with phantom tales of ,conquests. Once they forged a rapturous letter from a belle particularly favored, inviting him to tea. It was so momentous an occasion that he wore two shoes. So, f or that matter, did the butler who kicked him down the brownstone steps. He was blandished into lecturing publicly on "Love and Matrimony." He rented a Brooklyn hall with his scant funds. But when he took the platform only three persons were in the house-a janitor, who went with the rental fee, and two reporters. He waded bravely through his sentimen- talities and then shook hands gravely with all of them. He was far more prolific than his single volume indicates. Enough verses for three more of its size added to the smoke nuisance of 1830, when his unappreciative landlady tossed them in' the fire. "Them papers," she explained, "was covered with such devilish look- ing letters that I was afraid to be in the same house with them." Even in his death there was the curious twist of his distorted fate. A deer kicked him and the in iuries proved fatal. The punsters spelled it "dear," of course, and laughed behind his grave. And now his single vol- ume faintly answers back. . . G RACE CHURCH still stands, and so, of course, does New York society, but Isaac Brown, who once ruled them both, isn't even a memory any more. Brown it was who once found himself so harassed by the exact- ing duties of a monarch that he is- sued the testy ukase that he would not undertake to "run society above Fiftieth Street." As is the case with so many powers behind thrones, Brown was an outsider in the world he ruled. He was, in fact, nothing more exalted than a API\IL 1 b, 1 2, 7 church sexton. But, in the declining years of the Knickerbocker dynasty and. the perilous period of the Civil War, which brought the usual waf crop of millionaires and social climb- ers, Grace Church was the centre of all fashionable marriages and funerals and on these he rose to authority. He was, from all accounts, a tall, well-built man, a little gruff. His fea- tures were coarse, his face red, and one society leader of the day has left us word that he resembled nothing more than "a dressed-up car man." He had the austere manners of an assumed aristocracy. It is said that when he handed a stranger into a pew it was with a bow so patronizing that the visitor never came back a second Sunday. But he knew his "Who's Who" and in that knowledge was power. When a party was to be given the hostess sought out Brown. He it was who passed on the invitation list, more often made it out himself. He knew not only the names of those it would be entirely proper to invite but the names of those most likely to respond. He selected the caterer, the decorator, the musicians. Not only could he thus set the stage and cast the principal rôles but he could provide the supers as well. He had at his call a group of attractive young men who wore their swallow- tails and white vests gracefully. They danced well and they were often passed off by Brown as members of fastidious families at parties that had no other claim to distinction. They were, in fact, the grandfathers of our modern gigolos. He knew, too, where odd lots of counts and barons could be rented. They were a dilapidated collection financially, but their names loomed in guest lists and Brown knew his psychological values. Many are the stories of him, most of them of his tyranny. There is one of a nouveau riche couple who sought his services. The man had been a hat- ter and his wife had made waistcoats for a Fifth Avenue tailor. Suddenly weal thy, they wanted to crash society with a single leap. They submitted to Brown a list of five hundred guests whom they wished to invite to a reception. His thumbs went down. They defied him and proceeded. It is related that ex- actly seven persons attended their party.